


you believe in you (and i)

by EtceterasEverywhere



Series: respite [2]
Category: Phandom/The Fantastic Foursome (YouTube RPF)
Genre: Dan is Flowey/Asriel, Inspired By Undertale, M/M, Negative Thoughts, Not Explicit!, Phil is Papyrus, just me playing with timelines and stuff, mentions of violence and murder
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-01
Updated: 2019-10-01
Packaged: 2020-11-08 18:36:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,549
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20840144
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EtceterasEverywhere/pseuds/EtceterasEverywhere
Summary: The Underground goes empty and Dan wonders if he is enough.Also called: Once Phil made a Fan Club and between restarts, Dan finds the true meaning of said club and he also finds the importance of being a part of something bigger than himself.





	you believe in you (and i)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [intoapuddle](https://archiveofourown.org/users/intoapuddle/gifts).

> happy birthday, puddle! (even if i'm so late with this gift for you)  
here, have an undertale fic! hope you like it!
> 
> [listen to the title here](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nOubjLM9Cbc)!

The last moments as a being with a soul had left him thinking.

With his gaze fixed on yellow flowers, Dan felt himself disappear. He wasn’t disappearing in the way he did when the void was too much when the darkness just seemed to swallow him up; Dan was disappearing in his feelings.

The slow throbbing of a past memory, the remembrance of a soul that was long gone, the breeze in a place that he would see soon, the colour of certain flowers that tormented him in a time when it was all he could see; maybe even the serene notes of a musical box next to a statue that was falling apart.

A forgotten prince.

Sometimes feelings helped him think coherently. No demons breathing behind his neck, no repressed memories of not knowing how to love without a soul. He can now decide to start learning how to love, how to avoid restarting another timeline because of boredom. _Because of loneliness._

A new chapter he didn't know how to handle, and he had already decided to change, to allow everything to run its way. He had promised himself (_and Phil_) to let everything have a blissful conclusion. A promise to all the timelines and magical entities in existence and the memory of how difficult it would be to break a promise to Phil.

The last moments as a being with a soul made him renew that promise to Phil and the love he could feel for that last moment.

The light at the bottom of Mount Ebott increased for a moment. If anyone had seen Dan at that moment the light would blind them for a slight moment before they came across some yellow flowers being slightly balanced with the breeze, and they would notice the absence of something important.

*

The surface was beautiful, no description in all those books in Snowdin's library would ever compare to see the sky for the first time. Three simple sentences with limited colours and adjectives would never prepare anyone to see the sky when the sun was hiding. Nothing could describe how the wind would feel in every cell of your skin.

Dan somehow didn't feel like it was enough. Thousands and thousands of timelines had ruined his perception of reality along with nightmares of genocidal decisions, deaths and tortures.

The first time he met this colourful sky was the first time he considered someone his best friend; at that moment he was _Daniel, the prince of the Underground_, the future of monsters. Now there was nothing of that left, even if in his flower body he could feel all the power of that magnificent being, deep in his mind everything that had made him weak, damaged, everything that had led him to this destiny was still there.

"I think you're the angel of prophecy, you know."

The human, Frisk, appeared out of nowhere and was now sitting next to him. Always guessing what he was thinking and constantly trying to reduce some of the emotional baggage Dan had always tried to hide.

Frisk was the only one who understood what it was like to have the power to manage timelines at will, visiting other futures, other destinations. The difference between him and Frisk is that they never took a genocidal line out of boredom. After all, that is just because the human had always had their feelings there, in their soul. Frisk was not like him, they weren’t a disgusting monster without a fucking-

A hand started passing through his petals, Frisk by his side, always quiet and imperceptible. Their silence was always welcome, their mannerisms even more so when there were voices that were constantly shouting meaningless things inside Dan’s head, tormenting him, pressuring him to press the damn reset button.

"That's stupid. When I stopped being the prince when I became this stupid flower...I stopped being_ hope_."

"_The angel, the one who has seen the surface, they will return and the underground will go empty_," Frisk recited the prophecy without looking at him, eyes fixed on the sun that soon would be completely hidden. "If you ask me that sounds too familiar."

Dan inhaled some fresh air and tried to feel the beating of a soul that didn't exist.

"It doesn't feel like that."

"Look at them," Dan turned to see the camp that was near the inexistent barrier, "they're now free because of you.”

Nobody could blame him for doubting, for fearing that everything could restart again and that any kind of effort made, any attempt to do the right thing would mean nothing.

Dan remembered the first time he begged Frisk to let them be happy, before giving them the ability to reset, before giving them the power to play with timelines. He feared that as soon as Frisk restarted, they would kill everyone. Despite trusting Frisk not to do so he feared that they would get bored and destroy everything, and Dan could do nothing to prevent it because that power was something he didn’t want to use anymore. He had decided to put aside the role of antagonist and trust that Frisk wouldn't want to take it either.

When Frisk made their first restart and none of that came, Dan felt like his trust was put in a good place. The human released everyone again and they never talked about restarts again.

Dan felt defeated after that, maybe it was for the second timeline that he had to live without having the control of everything or just the feeling of time slipping between each of his molecules.

"I know I didn't listen to you the first time, but you have to trust me. I'm not going to do it again.” Frisk always seemed to know that I was tormenting him.

Dan sighed.

"I just feel like you did it because you liked how I regretted everything and how I begged you for mercy. How my role changed from an evil being to a broken prince who never knew how to control his damn feelings.” Dan let out a little chuckle, his new role included self-deprecation and there wouldn’t be a way to change that. "I don't blame you, I deserved that."

Frisk's gaze was now on Dan, but he won't turn to check that out, seeing them at the eyes makes everything much more difficult. Maybe Frisk will tell him how he doesn't deserve anything bad, that no matter what he has done he'd redeemed himself and received forgiveness from everyone. The problem is that he still doesn't forgive himself, no matter how much everyone forgives him and tells him that he can live peacefully, all those thoughts are still going to be there.

All the ways he hates himself, the ways he blames himself for all the permanent wounds in the timeline. That phantom pain in his chest whenever he sees _that scar_ on Phil's neck, the one he always hides behind a cape or a scarf. All those reasons why he wouldn't forgive himself.

"I haven't talked to Phil about _Flowey's Fan Club_ yet."

The sudden change of subject was a reminder that the human is not the only one who has always believed unconditionally in the goodness that could be found on him or that just thinks he is worthy despite everything that has happened.

Dan let out a chuckle, of course, _Flowey's Fan Club_. Oh Phil, oh great and amazing Phil.

He still remembers that moment between the first restarts. He was feeling hopeless and trapped. There weren't many ways he could mess up with the Underground, at least not the good ones, and the curiosity to discover more and more about the world he was born into became a constant feeling of being trapped.

Claustrophobia at its finest.

He remembers how he couldn’t retain anything, thoughts bleeding at the edges of an empty hole where his soul should be beating.

In one of those moments he spent with Phil, he told him everything. He told him about the first human, about _Daniel, the prince of the Underground_, about his adoptive mother, about the ruins, the restarts, and the surface.

He told him a story about despair.

Phil listened to him, he looked neither astonished nor terrified. He was just being understanding. For Phil it wasn't an odd story, it was as if for him Dan deserved to be treated as something normal, just as a normal monster with a soul.

_You are incredible, little flower_. He said, looking at Dan, eyes filled with emotion. _You are almost as amazing as me and I could say that we are similar. I will create a club to prove it, a club for my best friend. A club of two, a club of best friends. You and me. The amazing Phil and the wonderful Dan._

A branch suddenly shattered Phil's soul. Darkness and Snowdin’s lights illuminated the snow while Phil, with a sad smile on his face, turned to dust.

That night was the first time Dan killed Phil. Distorted memories made the scene poetic in some way; darkness, snow mixed with dust that was falling slowly, a high-pitched sound in his ears, and then nothing.

Nothing.

It wasn't poetic; it was just a huge bag of emptiness, hopelessness, and the memory of laughing when Phil's older brother, Martyn, tore him apart.

Dan didn’t want to have that emptiness swallowing him up and destroying everything in its path. That's why he had decided to change, for Phil, for everyone, wanting to have something more than the emptiness that had him at its mercy.

"Are you going to join then?" Dan joked.

"You always need more fans to remember that in spite of everything you helped me set free everyone."

Dan knew Frisk was smiling, trying to make Dan see that he had something good deep down, something that made him _enough_. He knew he needed a little more of those comforting words. One thing is trying to convince yourself to let it all go and another to convince yourself that you are allowed to think that your actions make you be good enough.

"Sometimes everything you've done haunts you, Frisk. The only thing that fills the space where my soul should be are those blurred, empty memories; I know everything and I've done too many things. Even though many of those memories are blurred, I remember very well how they felt."

Silence and then, "you should let yourself be happy with what you have now, just make a truce with all those memories and just…go ahead."

As if it was easy to do so.

"I can't feel, Frisk, I don't know how to do that."

Frisk gave Dan a soft hit in one of his leaves, "I know you'd like to go back to your original form, forget everything and make the right decisions, but without all the suffering you went through, without all the decisions you made we wouldn't be here.”

Clever little human, Dan must give them credit for trying to reason with him.

Maybe the chaos was worth it at the end and maybe that's the only thing that matters now. Like him, Frisk felt trapped and tried to escape, and they wouldn't go back to what they escaped from because their decisions were made and they found happiness in the place where all those bad decisions took them. Frisk accepted their past and just continued with their life.

Maybe Dan could do the same.

Before he could say anything Frisk was gone. The little slippery human, they always have to say the deepest things to get him thinking. Letting Dan think that maybe he deserves a little bit of happiness.

Happiness is a strange term, an unrealistic term if someone asked. So many years ago he had felt happy when he was just a little boy, but those memories went away along with his soul on a journey with no return.

The stars started twinkling around hoping Dan could wish for something when he decided to return to the camp.

*

The camp near the now non-existent Underground barrier was filled with noise and music. The energy that was once drained from the monsters when they were locked in the Underground returned in the form of music and magic. In the form of hope.

All that noise, all that excitement was what made Dan feel that maybe it was worth making so many bad decisions. This was the future he liked; it was the future he could live in.

"You missed the meeting, Dan."

Smiling and with a worried but sympathetic look, a hoodie which might as well belong to his brother, and a finger firmly pointing at him, Phil was waiting for him. Like an angel who had come to save him from himself.

Maybe he felt brave, maybe he felt alive and full of hope. Maybe he had already started to forgive himself for all the bad decisions as much as Phil had forgiven him a long time ago. Or maybe it was just Phil's power over him, that magnetism, that ability to make flowers sprout on the driest of lands.

He stretched out one of his branches and entangled himself in Phil's finger, helping himself with every part of his flower body to climb on each of Phil's bones; climbing as if he was ivy and Phil was his sustenance.

Once Dan was comfortably settled in Phil's shoulder he asked, "What meeting are you telling me about now, silly bones?"

"_Flowey's Fan Club _meeting, you dork."

Adjusting Dan’s branches on his body Phil smiled at him. His eyes dug into his, silently wondering about his whereabouts.

_It’s your decision to restart again, you know?_ Phil had told him in one of those forgotten timelines with a shattered expression, a crown on his head, and the weight of a kingdom on his shoulders. _Same town, same attire, you can find me again. When you are lost you will always find me in our memories._

Even in those moments when Dan had lost his mind and himself, Phil always trusted him to do the right thing. He always believed that there was something good inside of him.

"I don't remember you telling me anything about that."

"Of course I did, Dan! I even made posters and put them all around in our tent, you couldn’t have possibly forgotten that!"

Dan laughed, feeling like memories filled with sunsets, crystals, and snow were revealed next to hopeless memories. Perhaps one day all those good memories could replace his soul, for now, they would be enough to feel more than pain.

There, in the little empty room where Dan's soul should be in, besides all those memories there were also posters. The posters were of different sizes and a variety of colours, _Flowey's Fan Club_ was written in huge letters and underneath there were two badly drawn figures, a skeleton and a flower, holding hands, smiling, and dancing.

A club of two. The amazing Phil and the wonderful Dan.

The ability to love without having a soul, Dan already had the secret inside his leaves and his petals. Dan had found the secret in scars, timelines, and bones. Now he just had to start facing his chosen route.

**Author's Note:**

> for a bit of context here's some of the story of papyrus and flowey in undertale, something i was inspired of and it was always on my mind! [:D](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V5tX0GyG3_I&t=91s)
> 
> (again, happy birthday, puddle! thank you for being such a light in our community <3)
> 
> if you enjoyed this story of mine please leave a comment, that would make me happy! :D 
> 
> or you can also reblog it on [tumblr](https://etceteraseverywhere.tumblr.com/post/188057157436/you-believe-in-you-and-i)


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